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<blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 7769638" data-attributes="member: 85555"><p>I think when you start throwing in supplementary books for any editions, it seriously complicates the conversation. Even 3E changes radically when you do that. With AD&amp;D though, I always tended to view most of the material in other books outside the core as optional and up to the GM to include or not. This felt particularly true in 2E when so many features of the game (even in the core) were tagged as &quot;optional&quot;. I think that is fine, an edition or a school doesn't have to be wholly unified. The thing in my mind that makes this period of gaming very different from post-2000, was there seemed to be much more of an expectation that the GM ultimately made the call on this stuff. We had class books with kits in 2E, but the impact they had on the table was much smaller than the 3E complete books for example, because there was, at least in the area I gamed in, a cultural shift toward an expectation that whatever was in the rules, was permissible. In 2E I never had a problem explaining to a player that some optional kit went against the spirit of the setting I ran, or seemed imbalanced to me, but in 3E I routinely ran into that debate (where a player would insist they should be able to use a prestige class or feat from one of the complete books, even if the flavor felt wildly out of place to the setting). I don't think it was an intentional shift, but I do think it is clear the books prior to 3E were mainly written to the GM, and the books after 3E were largely written to the players, and that, coupled with a very comprehensive rules system, helped create a different mentality. I could be wrong about that, but it was my impression at the time.</p></blockquote><p></p>

[QUOTE="Bedrockgames, post: 7769638, member: 85555"] I think when you start throwing in supplementary books for any editions, it seriously complicates the conversation. Even 3E changes radically when you do that. With AD&D though, I always tended to view most of the material in other books outside the core as optional and up to the GM to include or not. This felt particularly true in 2E when so many features of the game (even in the core) were tagged as "optional". I think that is fine, an edition or a school doesn't have to be wholly unified. The thing in my mind that makes this period of gaming very different from post-2000, was there seemed to be much more of an expectation that the GM ultimately made the call on this stuff. We had class books with kits in 2E, but the impact they had on the table was much smaller than the 3E complete books for example, because there was, at least in the area I gamed in, a cultural shift toward an expectation that whatever was in the rules, was permissible. In 2E I never had a problem explaining to a player that some optional kit went against the spirit of the setting I ran, or seemed imbalanced to me, but in 3E I routinely ran into that debate (where a player would insist they should be able to use a prestige class or feat from one of the complete books, even if the flavor felt wildly out of place to the setting). I don't think it was an intentional shift, but I do think it is clear the books prior to 3E were mainly written to the GM, and the books after 3E were largely written to the players, and that, coupled with a very comprehensive rules system, helped create a different mentality. I could be wrong about that, but it was my impression at the time. [/QUOTE]

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